Bitches Brewin': a monthly forum mix-tape

Cool! That whole post was written for you. :)

About 2/3rds of the way through track 5, HTH020 - The Haxan Cloak’s Cloud of Witness, I had to take off the headphones and stretch my legs and take a breather. That is one aggressive piece of noise, especially when you’re facing down Darkbeast Paarl for the umpteenth time and losing your nerve.

I have a playlist I made for playing Mansions of Madness and Eldritch Horror to; we were sat in a friend’s house and I thought why not make shred more nerves than we otherwise would?

It’s got two Haxan Cloak albums (love his stuff) and a Pharmakonalbum (really hard listening). It’s also got a Laura album in it, and they’re probably my favourite post-rock group (the GS!YE was a request, I probably wouldn’t have added it myself). Maybe some of you will find some joy in it?

Cool! Thanks. I’ll see if my poor heart can stand it.

i’d also like to see more with such a fondness for haxan cloak. i hope that guy finds his way into film scores someday, because they could use someone with that weight

also – aw, new sufjan stevens. now my add is lame, but still:


Ang Low - Life Goes Down EP

found this a couple months ago. i tend to just pitch in EPs instead of full albums because i find them to be a tighter, more focused work than a 35-50 minute arrangement. ang low’s vocals are great, but i’m a sucker for music with a variety of levels and tempo in each track, where it could sound like a very different song in at least two parts. this EP gave me that feeling on first listen, even though the tracks are all pretty standard

Okay, I finally got one for May! (Hope it’s not June yet.)

I’ve added the woozy, shoegazey self-titled 2013 debut from Minneapolis band Gospel Gossip. I read a recommendation over at the AV Club last week and really liked what I heard. They’re in the vein of Galaxie 500, MBV, Drugstore, etc. All kinds of dreamy lushness floating around like cherry blossoms but without all that irritating pollen.

So late, but been getting back into some Swell Maps, so here, jane from occupied europe:

So, so, so goddamn much awesome.

Yay for Swell Maps! I almost put up TVP’s And Don’t the Kids Just Love It last month instead of Go Team.

Still really loving that Akkord stuff. They may replace Haxan Cloak and Mordant Music as my go-to dark ambient with beats playlist.

Same with L-R (though, interestingly, the link you put up goes right to some sort of Hispanic disco tune…you have to dig down in the playlist to find the noise). They remind me strongly of those old, creepy lo-fi tribal records by Zoviet France. Love that kind of stuff.

The Hant Variation is an interesting drone exercise, but maybe a little too innocuous to return to more than once.

So hard to find out how Dan Treacy is doing these days.

Maybe it’s cause I got into the whiskey tonight, but goddamn this sounds great!

Attaboy!

Nice list this month - thanks for the great tunes! Especially enjoyed wolfhounds, leisure society, and best coast, but they were all good listens.

Last month.

This month, I was going to add a D’Angelo album with a lazy summer feel but it’s from last year, so instead you get JSBX. H’enjoy.

My pick this month is Mikal Cronin’s new album, MCIII.

I feel like I’ve listened to Cronin before and enjoyed it passively, without anything really sticking with me. This album, though, got its hooks into me good.

I really liked that Ang Low EP, whoever posted that. 'Just starting Swell Maps now.

If you’re familiar with Bobby Wratten’s work under the names The Field Mice, Northern Picture Library, The Occasional Keepers or Trembling Blue Stars, you’ll recognize my pick immediately. It’s quite clearly his sound and he’s been doing it for 25 years now. Apparently he wore out all his other nom de plumes and is recording under the name Lightning in a Twilight Hour, which sounds like a post-rock band, but isn’t. It’s another album of sad, occasionally jangly indiepop with interstitial ambience. It’s probably my favorite thing of his since the Northern Picture Library full album, which is why I’m adding it here.

Looking forward to that one.

For June, I hath dragged and dropped the brand new one from Eternal Summers. First, there’s that band name. Second, Never Enough from their last album was officially THE BEST SONG OF 2014 so I was really super looking forward to this release. Sounds good so far, though perhaps a bit too much dreamy and not enough screamy. I really like it when they cut loose. HAPPY SUMMER!!!

I was just enjoying that Eternal Summers album earlier in the week! I generally like everything they put put but nothing ever quite grabs me enough to work its way into my rotation.

I sort of agree, but Never Enough snuck up on me after five or six listens so I want to give this new one plenty of chances. :)

Yesterday on twitter I opined that if you combined the 2013 and 2015 EP releases from Australia’s Flyying Colours, you’d have the greatest shoegaze album since Loveless. I was not kidding about that sentiment.

I was then apprised that they have collected them into a limited edition digipack, which I’ve ordered. That collection is also available on Spotify, so BOOYAH!

I am trying to conceive of a volume level for this collection of songs that would constitute being “too loud”. Short of blowing out the windows of the house, I’m not sure that exists.

As much as I love Flyying Colours, I’ve heard all these before! I was hoping this was new material. Hopefully they’re working on some…